Sometimes I have this strange desire for somebody (um, anybody?) to know what I’m thinking at any given moment, and possibly be able to empathize, commiserate, share or otherwise relate to whatever it is. Maybe it’s something frustrating, or maybe it’s something completely awesome that has me fired up and wanting to share it. I’m assuming, perhaps completely erroneously, that others have this strange need sometimes too. Am I totally off base here?

I used to think it was because my children were little, and the conversations in the house during the day weren’t exactly what one would call “stimulating” and it’s not like the children could have been said to care about any of the things that concern me or that I think are cool. I thought that as time went by and they got a bit older, that would change. Sadly, I was mistaken, and the conversations still aren’t exactly stimulating, just a different sort of mundane, and they still don’t care about the things that I do, and we definitely don’t have the same definitions of “cool.” “Mom, what’s for dinner?” “Mom, I made an appointment on Tuesday at the doctor. What do you mean you can’t take me on Tuesday?” “You’re excited about thread?” “Do I have to empty the dishwasher?” (Jeez, I wonder what reaction I’d get if I said they had to actually wash the dishes, by hand? They’d probably run screaming all the way to France!)

There are times when I want to call ITMan or a girlfriend or my mom, just to share whatever it is that is in my head at that moment with an adult, thank you very much, and ITMan is not at his desk or I know he’s too busy right then, the girlfriends are all unavailable for whatever reasons (they have lives or some distracting thing like that), and mom is, well, not always communicative when needed. And beside that, mom has heard all the stuff like this, my very first Twitter post,

There are days I’d happily trade my beautiful teenager for a mangy stray dog with fleas. Today was one of those days.

She’s heard it all before, in multiples, and lived it as well. She’s undoubtedly tired of hearing it by now, though to her credit, she does sympathize when I do bend her ears about it all.

There are also those moments where everything is just “short and sweet” (or maybe not so sweet, depending on whether a teenager and the center of the universe are involved), and not really something I want to get into in a long blog post (and I don’t seem to be able to write short ones which is probably due to a genetic defect dating back to my Grandmama’s day; she was notorious for including all the minutiae that no one really needed to know in every story she ever told and I seem to have inherited that trait), so a short one or two sentence thing is really all that it needs to be. I wonder if my Grandmama had the same penchant for parentheses? She probably got sidetracked just like I do…

To that end, I’ve added the Scraps section that you see to the right, courtesy of Twitter. Yes, I’ve been sucked in by that Twitter thing finally. Do you Twitter? If so, share your “Follow Me” link or whatever it is, and we’ll Twitter together. We can hook up, or whatever is is that people do when they Twitter. Tweet!

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It’s been a week (and a day) since I picked up my new glasses, and a week since I visited my favorite hairdresser, Jessica, in Stuttgart. I have to say that the glasses came off with more success than the hair, though the glasses are the cause of the current dissatisfaction with the hair.

Backstory: I haven’t had a pair of glasses that I liked for more than about a week (if even that long) ever. And I’ve never been able to continuously wear them anyway, since I’m nearsighted, so I need them to drive and watch TV across the room, but I can’t wear them to read or do anything where I have to focus close up. I get this instant headache if I use my glasses to read, and I do mean instant, like within seconds the back of my head between my ears and down my neck is absolutely pounding.

I don’t have this problem with contact lenses; I can read just fine, no headaches, although I do have to hold the book farther away than I do without contacts. I’ve told this to every eye doctor I’ve ever been to, and one of them suggested bifocals a few years ago, with no correction on the bottom part of the lens. Sounded good in theory, didn’t work in practice. I still got the pounding headaches. Those lenses went back and after that, I’ve just stuck with contacts when I go out and have to drive, glasses (with frames I hate) to watch movies or drive quick trips if I’m too rushed to put contacts in, and no eye correction the rest of the time. I know what the inside of my house looks like, and I’m not THAT blind, so I just deal with it and don’t wear anything when I’m at home.

But lately, since the big 4-0 came around, my near vision is starting to go as well. I’ll bet that some of you knew this was coming, right? Now, even without my contacts in, I have to hold things farther away to see them, and then there’s the computer monitors, which are either too far away or not far enough, depending on the day (or something). And those little tiny numbers on the tops of machine needles? I swear they don’t even exist anymore. Since my glasses were eight years old (my bad), I took a trip to the eye doctor finally.

So I now have progressive lenses. Yep, no-line trifocals. I’m feeling old, people. And dang, these lenses were expensive! This is what happens when you can’t see properly out of single vision lenses anymore I guess. I’m still trying to get used to them, and figure out which part of the lenses to look through at which time, though that headache threatens as soon as I do it wrong, so I’m hoping it’s just a matter of time before it’s automatic and all.

I did manage to find a pair of frames that I like pretty well, and they look okay on me, I think. I’m not sure what attracted me to this pair, but maybe it was the combination of the swirly, mother of pearl looking sides, the little bit of bling in the raised silver dots at the temple, and the iridescent metallic jade green lens frame in front. All of those elements must appeal to the color and embellishment junkie quilter that I’ve become lately.

And the hair? The style I had was in conflict with the glasses; I’ve been wearing a no-bangs look lately, and I had this chunk of hair on the side by my eye that got hung up on the side of the frames that just wasn’t working. I told Jessica about it and showed her what I didn’t like, and she suggested cutting in some wispy bangs. Sounded good in theory, big mistake in practice. Then it was worse, in a different way, than it was before. I looked young before, younger than I am anyway, and could probably have passed for say, 30-ish. After the cut, I looked totally my age, or maybe more. It was just wrong, and the glasses weren’t helping so I was really feeling the pain. And feeling old.

I say “was” because I tackled the hair this morning with a pair of sewing scissors and got those “wispy bangs” straightened out to my satisfaction, and I’m feeling a bit better about it all. I might be able to actually live with it, instead of going back to her to have a re-do. *sigh* I’ve had this love/hate relationship with my hair for the past few years anyway, since when I have bangs, I can’t get them to cooperate all the time, and when I don’t have bangs I feel like my face looks too long and maybe too severe. Now I guess with the glasses, it’s back to the bangs for a while. I look younger again, for now. And sometimes, I can even see past my nose.

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In addition to the landlord issues, another not so fun thing happened with the kids the other day. The girls have been more likely to go out walking in the neighborhood since we moved here than they ever were at the house in Stuttgart. The only place they ever went in our neighborhood there was to the little shop/gas station down the street to buy packaged ice cream, because that was the only place there was to go. Here at the new place, there are three bakeries, a drug store, a castle with a lovely park and an ice cream shop, all within walking distance of the house so they’re more likely to go out and about a couple of times a week or so.

All was good until the other day when they went on their usual “bakery-then-ice-cream-then-to-the-park” walkabout. Some punk kids shouted anti-American obscenities at them outside the ice cream shop because they heard them speaking English between themselves. Evidently these were fairly young children, but if the children are spouting it, you can surely figure out where they’ve learned it. I realize these are just kids, but it seems this little town has some residents that don’t like Americans so much.

I should note that we’ve been very lucky to have escaped this type of attitude for the 14 years we’ve lived in Germany, but that doesn’t make it feel any nicer. In France, yes, it’s almost a given thing that Americans are not well liked (especially when a bus load of us descended on a restaurant one night during a Paris tour; some French patrons actually left, loudly complaining “Too many stars and stripes in here!” on their way out the door) but I’ve never experienced this is Germany, nor have my children ever been on the receiving end of such anti-American sentiments, at least not so overtly.

The sad thing is that the girls are now a bit uncomfortable about going out and about. I told them what to do if it ever happens again (leave the area quickly, go to a different store and explain the problem to the store clerk, and call me on the cel phone. I will drive to get them with baseball bat in hand; don’t mess with my kids), but they’re probably going to stick close to home for the nonce. The next few times they want ice cream, either ITMan will have to walk with them, or I’ll maybe take them by in the car on the way home from some other outing. It’s not like they’re young, they’re 11 and 16, but they’re not exactly streetwise toughs, my girls. I could probably say in all honesty that they’ve been sheltered from the ugly parts of the world as they’ve grown up, as it should be.

I’ve never really felt unsafe in Germany overall, and I do my best to blend in. Well, except for that car thing. Mustangs are sold in Germany, but not in great numbers so they’re pretty much a giveaway, but at least I do have real German license plates now, as opposed to how it used to be. When we arrived here in 1994, we had plates that were obviously only on American cars; I felt like I was wearing a sign that said “Shoot me, I’m an American” with those. I do always feel like people look at us when we’re in public, especially if we’re at restaurants talking amongst ourselves and can be overheard speaking English.

Sure, ITMan and I aren’t exactly fluent German speakers (far from it), even after living here so long, but we do try. In our defense, we never thought we’d be here this long, and I just don’t want to spend the time to learn more of it than I have. The kids are pretty good at it, with LittleOne near fluent after being in German Kindergarten for two years, and having classes since then. I could tell the kids to speak German even between themselves when they are out without parents, but that still doesn’t address the real issue, I think.

So I’m not too sure what to think about this development here in our little town. Our immediate neighbors have probably all figured out by now that we’re American, though not military, and they seem okay with it. Not that we’ve been asked to the neighborhood barbecue or anything, which is fine too, but at least they’re not throwing eggs at our house or shouting mean things as they drive by. It’s funny; the American community is soooo much larger here in the Heidelberg area than it is in Stuttgart, and yet our first experience like this happens in Heidelberg.

Maybe it’s something to do with the fact that Stuttgart is a larger, more internationalized area, with more large companies that have international employees than Heidelberg. There could be more non-DoD associated Americans in Stuttgart than Americans who are associated with the military, and maybe more Germans in the Heidelberg area just have it in for the American military and DoD associated folks, because there are soooo many of them here. In other words, in Stuttgart, German people wouldn’t automatically assume you are associated with the American military if you speak English; you could be working for DaimlerChrysler, Mercedes, Bosch, etc. and if you don’t know if someone works for the military, why target them with hatred for the American military?

Whatever it is, I’m definitely not feeling good about it all. What’s your view? Have you experienced this type of thing, whether vacationing or living abroad? How would you feel?

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